It is now common for a website to offer video content to the users viewing the website. Typically, a page of a website will include one or more embedded video players, and each of the embedded video players is configured to play a different video. A user initiates playback of a video by issuing some positive play intent action, such as clicking on a play button of the video player.
In many instances, the website publisher who creates a website derives revenue not from use of the website, but rather from advertisers who place advertisements on the website. In the past, most advertising was in the form of display or banner advertisements. Display or banner advertisements could be positioned at various locations on a page of a website. If a user viewing the website wished to obtain more information about an advertisement, the user would typically select or click upon the display advertisement, and the user's browser would then navigate to and load a website run by the advertiser.
In many instances, a website publisher will subscribe to an advertising service to obtain advertisements that are then displayed on the publisher's website. Thus, many website publishers do not have individual contracts with the advertisers themselves, but rather obtain advertisements through an advertising service. The advertising service, in turn, sets up relationships with a large number of different advertisers and essentially acts as a middleman between website publisher and the advertisers.
When a user navigates to particular webpage, browser software on the user's computer will render the webpage on the user's display based upon computer code embedded in the webpage. The user typically does not see the embedded computer code that enables the browser to render the webpage. However, the browser software application uses the embedded computer code to determine what to display to the user.
If a website publisher decides to place one or more advertisements on a webpage, the website publisher can include embedded computer code in a header of the webpage that dictates where the advertisements will be placed, the size of the advertisements, and various other information. The browser software utilizes the embedded computer code relating to the advertisements to request advertisements from an advertising service. When an advertising service receives such a request, the request may include information about what will be presented on the webpage. This allows the advertiser to seek out advertisements that are relevant to the content of the webpage which is being rendered.
In some instances, the advertising service might seek bids from multiple different advertisers, asking if they would like to place an advertisement on the webpage that is being rendered by the browser software. The request for a bid may include information about the content of the webpage being rendered that was originally provided to the advertising service by the browser software. If the advertising service requests bids, various advertisers would provide bids that indicate the prices the respective advertisers are willing to pay to have their advertisement appear on the webpage being rendered. The advertising service then reviews all submitted bids and selects a winning bid.
Once the advertising service has selected advertisements for the webpage, the advertising service provides information back to the browser software that enables the browser software to obtain the selected advertisements. This information could be, for example, a URL at which an advertisement asset is stored. The browser software uses the information provided by the advertising service to obtain the selected advertisements, and the advertisements are then displayed at the appropriate locations on the webpage as part of the processes of rendering the webpage.
While the above-described process works well for display or banner ads, this process has various problems and difficulties when browser software is attempting to obtain a video advertisement that will be played to a user in conjunction with the play of video content.
As noted above, many publishers now place video content on their websites to induce users to navigate the website and view material. When a user requests the play of a video, it is possible to also play video advertisements to the user that the user must watch in order to view the desired video content. Video advertisements can be played to the user before the user is shown the desired video. In addition, and particularly in the case of a long video, the user may be forced to watch several short video advertisements at various different times as the full video content is played to the user. Because most video content on websites is relatively short in duration, video advertising is typically played immediately before the user is able to watch a desired video. Such advertisements are sometimes referred to as “pre-rolls.”
When a webpage includes video content, one or more instantiations of a video player software application are generated as the webpage is rendered, and a particular video is loaded within each video player instantiation. The process of instantiating a video player on a webpage, and then loading a video within the video player can take a significant amount of time. Moreover, if multiple different video players, each with its own associated video, are to be rendered on a webpage, additional time is required to complete the rendering of the webpage by the browser.
It is possible to perform the same basic process described above for acquiring display or banner ads to instead acquire video advertisements. However, in the case of banner or display ads it is easy to send a request to an advertising service for display or banner ads immediately as the webpage begins to load. The general content of a webpage is known in advance, and that information can be provided to the advertising service, so the advertising service is able to select advertisements that are relevant to the content of the webpage.
In the case of video ads, however, is often difficult to know what type of video will be loaded into an instantiation of a video player software application. Often, only the title of the video is known, and the title of the video may not be indicative of the actual content of the video. As a result, it becomes more difficult for an advertising service to identify an appropriate video advertisement that will be played in advance of the video content.
Moreover, it is often necessary for the video player to be fully instantiated and for the correct video to be loaded before even the title of the video is known. This means there will be a significant time delay between when the browser software begins to render a webpage and the point in time at which the title of the video is known so that the video title can be passed along to the advertising service. In many instances, even the title of a video is unavailable when the advertising service must select a video advertisement that will be played with a particular video. Advertisers are unwilling to pay as much to place a video advertisement when the relevance of the advertisement is in doubt as compared to a situation where the advertiser knows that the advertisement is relevant to the video that will be played by the user.
In addition, it is often difficult for the browser to determine where on the webpage the video player will be located once the webpage is fully rendered. The browser often also does not know the size of the player, the resolution of the video that will be played, the language of the video that will be played and various other items of information that an advertiser would like to know in order to select an appropriate video ad. Here again, this uncertainty means that advertisers are not willing to pay as much to have a video advertisement played than they would in situations where these items of information are known.
For all the above-described reasons, and for additional reasons discussed below, it is difficult to use the traditional display advertising acquisition methods to select appropriate video ads to be played in connection with videos which appear on a website. Moreover, essentially the same problems exist in connection with selecting appropriate video ads to be played in connection with the play of videos on mobile devices and televisions connected to the Internet.